


Shooting the Messenger

by meowloudly15



Category: Warriors - Erin Hunter
Genre: Absurd humour, Gen, I do enjoy a good freakout, Low-key author cameo, OOTS Spoilers, characters listed in order of appearance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 01:29:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17458010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meowloudly15/pseuds/meowloudly15
Summary: The residents of StarClan try to decide on who will deliver a new prophecy to the Clans. Hilarity ensues, as should be expected. A spiritual successor (ha ha) to At the Gathering. Rated K because it's entirely appropriate.





	Shooting the Messenger

**Author's Note:**

> This is the... should I call this a soft reboot? Well, it's another story in the vein of At the Gathering. This was originally published on FFN in October of 2018, although I had the idea for it over the previous summer.
> 
> My original author's notes are in the main text of the fic. I did make an error, but I left it unchanged (because posterity!)
> 
> Also, BEWARE OF SPOILERS FROM OOTS!

**Hey, everybody! It's meowloudly15, back with some more parodic goodness! This one hinges around how StarClan chooses the cats who get to deliver the prophecies.**

**DISCLAIMER: _Warriors_ , all related characters, and any other media which I reference don't belong to me.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Silverpelt gleamed high in the sky above StarClan's expansive territory. A wide pool sat nestled in a divot on top of a rolling green hill. Shapes shimmered into view around the pool: the figures of cats, hundreds of them, settled themselves along the banks. One cat, a small tortoiseshell she-cat, padded to the front of the group and lifted her tail for silence.

The cat spoke: "There is another new prophecy. I and all my fellow medicine cats-"

She was promptly interrupted by a bluish-grey she-cat meowing, "Get out of here, Spottedleaf! You're already dead!"

Spottedleaf replied in confusion, "Bluestar, this is StarClan. We're all dead here."

"Yeah, but, like, you're doubly dead or whatever happened." Bluestar motioned impatiently with her tail. "Just get out of here."

"Fine," Spottedleaf huffed. She stalked away and promptly vanished.

A charcoal-grey she-cat with a scarred leg came forward and proclaimed, "For once, that moron Spottedleaf is right. We medicine cats (I still don't get why we're mostly she-cats) have heard of a new prophecy. You know, not like the book arc, like an actual prophecy."

A cat in the back raised his paw and asked, "What's a book arc?"

"It's... Never mind. So yeah. Now we gotta pick who's gonna give this prophecy to the folks down below. How are we gonna do that?"

A brief silence ensued.

The medicine cat continued, "I'll take ideas from the audience."

A small, elderly, reddish she-cat raised her paw.

"Yes, Russetfur?"

Russetfur replied, "How about we play prey-stone? We could set up-"

She was promptly interrupted by an outcry from Flametail. "NO! I WILL HAVE NOTHING MORE TO DO WITH THAT STARCLAN-DARNED GAME! YOU'RE NOT PLAYING THAT GAME, NOT OVER MY DEAD BODY!" He then stopped, having just realised what he said. "Well, in a manner of speaking."

The medicine cat asked, "Any other ideas?"

A small black-and-white cat, hardly the size of an apprentice but with a surprisingly deep voice, raised his paw. "Let's play Musical Chairs!"

The medicine cat responded, "What's a chair?"

"I dunno."

"Moving on. Anyone else?"

A blueish-grey kit darted forward. "Hold on now, Cinderpelt!"

Cinderpelt rolled her eyes. "What do you want, Mosskit?"

Mosskit raised her head, his eyes sparkling. "Why am I not a warrior like Badgerfang over there?"

She gestured with his tail towards the small black-and-white cat who had spoken up earlier.

Cinderpelt frowned. "What are you talking about?"

Mosskit explained, "Badgerfang got made into a warrior in StarClan. So did Smallstar, and . So why am I not a warrior?"

Cinderpelt gazed at the kit blankly. "I... I don't know. StarClan works in mysterious ways."

"It WHAT? Oh, come on! I just wanna get a cool name like Mossface or someth-"

Cinderpelt shooed Mosskit away. "Okay, seriously, anyone got actual suggestions?"

A cream-coloured she-cat staggered forward. "Yo, Cinderpelt! Dude!"

Cinderpelt rolled her eyes again. "Mothflight, have you been in the catnip again?"

"Yeah, but seriously. Have you ever looked at your paws? Like, REALLY looked at them?"

Cinderpelt waved her tail dismissively at the former WindClan medicine cat and said, "Yeah, yeah, that's nice. Now go home. Anyone el-?"

Mothflight interrupted her. "Wait! Seriously, I got an idea. What about we play Rock, Paper, Scissors?"

Cinderpelt cocked her head inquisitively. "What's a paper?"

Mothflight hesitated before replying. "I dunno." She then turned tail and ran back into the crowd, yelling, "Hey! Firestar! Do you like waffles?"

Cinderpelt sighed and facepawed. "I'm surrounded by idiots."

The entire crowd of StarClan denizens, who were sitting in a half-circle around her, immediately meowed, "Ex-CUSE ME?"

Cinderpelt did her best to verbally backspace. "I-I-I didn't mean it like that! You-you're all really great people, I mean cats! You... You're just so... You're all real stars! You-you're so, uh, bright!"

"Hey! I got an idea!" meowed a cat from the back row. All Cinderpelt could see of the cat was a bushy red tail.

"What is it, Redtail?"

"I'm not Redtail! I'm Rosetail! You know, the cat that everyone forgets was in the first book but was actually there?"

"Yeah, I was in the first book, too, though!" hollered back Redtail.

Rosetail replied, "You were only in the allegiances!"

"Yeah, but I did a heck of a lot more than you did!"

"All you did was get killed by the Tiger-clone-base!"

"Yeah? You weren't even important enough to make it to the allegiances!"

"Hey, but I at least got to meet the hero of the arc before I so tragically perished!"

"Nobody cares! I kicked off the whole plot! Isn't that im-"

"For the love of us, SHUT UP!" yowled Cinderpelt.

The bickering cats fell silent.

Cinderpelt had lost it. She began to rant: "I don't know what the Place of No Stars you mouse-brains are blathering about! I don't know what book arks, allegiances, Tigerclones, or any of that other nonsense means! And frankly, I don't care! We're in the middle of a very important meeting regarding the future of all of the Clans, and we're hung up on this one moronic issue that none of us seem to be able to come to an agreement on! And I'm sick and tired of all your idiotic suggestions and foolhardy complaints! We have a job to do, and we sure as heck are going to do it! You have the entire rest of your spiritual existences to argue amongst yourselves, but this needs to be done NOW! Honestly, it's getting to the point where I just wanna push this prophecy off on one of the regulars to deliver as per us-"

"I have a question!" meowed Lionheart.

Cinderpelt snapped, "WHAT."

"What does heck mean?"

Cinderpelt unsheathed her claws and dug them into the sand. "Oh, for our sake! To heck with all of this; I'll deliver the hecking prophecy!"

She stalked off and vanished without a word.

The cats all looked at each other.

"Why do you think Cinderpelt freaked out like that?" asked Featherwhisker.

"She's probably all angst-ridden about not being able to do any prophecy stuff after she got reincarnated - somehow," replied Runningnose.

"How do you think that happened?" asked Mudfur.

"Even I don't get how she could have done that," said Goosefeather in one of his few lucid moments.

"True that," added Barkface.

"And I really resent her comment about how only she-cats tend to be medicine cats," sulked Hawkheart.

"I resent that, and I think the author's trying to keep me out of this last segment just because I already said something in this story," said Flametail.

I frowned from my comfortable seat behind a computer. "Curses, foiled again."


End file.
